<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Rest Your Head Close to My Heart, Never to Part by Thedupshadove</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26552560">Rest Your Head Close to My Heart, Never to Part</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thedupshadove/pseuds/Thedupshadove'>Thedupshadove</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mechanisms (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, But it's still very much angst, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Dr. Carmilla's C- Parenting, Gen, Unhealthy Relationships, canon-typical Carmilla, in general it's just meant to be kind of unsettling, mentions of medical abuse, of the parent/child variety</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:28:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>470</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26552560</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thedupshadove/pseuds/Thedupshadove</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After a long hard day of experimenting, a moment of repose.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dr Carmilla &amp; Jonny d'Ville</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rest Your Head Close to My Heart, Never to Part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The darker side of how I picture Carmilla's relationships with the Mechs, Jonny in particular.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He doesn’t want to be comforted by this.</p><p>She’s just spent the last several hours putting him through a series of ridiculous “tests”. Something about how stress response changes with the presence of a mechanical heart. It was painful and terrifying and he should hate her for it and he <i>does</i> hate her for it. From the bottom of his soul.</p><p>But now the tests are over, and she has spread out her arms, and although he doesn’t understand why he should, he has fallen into them. He’s too big to sit in her lap, really, but somehow he’s doing it anyway, and she is rocking him back and forth and making little hums and coos. </p><p>He knows that, in making him immortal, she really did a great deal more than replace his heart—there were a thousand tiny alterations that she refuses to detail. He wonders if she did something to his biochemistry; something to do with neurotransmitters and pheromone responses. If that’s why a voice in the back of his brain chants <i>Mama, Mama, Mama</i> whenever she touches him. Like a kitten when you grab its scruff, his muscles instinctively relax, his breathing slows and regularizes, and an undeniable peace starts to percolate through him. </p><p>Or maybe it’s just a reflexive response to being surrounded by warmth and this close to the sound of someone’s heartbeat (he doesn’t have a heartbeat anymore, and the replacement of <i>thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump</i> with <i>TickTickTickTickTick</i> is something he will never truly get used to, and the woman whose heart now soothes him <i>is the one who did that</i>) </p><p>She’s truly humming now, a tune he doesn’t recognize but can somehow tell is a lullaby. She cards her fingers through his hair with one hand and strokes his back with the other. He can feel her breath on his ear and it’s <i>nice</i>, and how can the woman who is doing all this be the same woman who’s been dispassionately torturing him for the better part of the last day? He had cried out in fear and pain and pleaded with her to make it stop but it never did! Why!?</p><p>(If he had perhaps just a bit more emotional intelligence, he might realize that it’s because she does not understand—<i>cannot</i> understand—the incongruity. He is her baby and he is her experiment and she loves him equally much in both capacities. She will never willingly give either one up.)</p><p>He knows that he should not accept this gentle moment, but pain and fear are tiring things. Besides, he knows her pattern by now. It will be some time before her cruelties truly begin again. She kisses him softly on the forehead and he gives up. Tomorrow, he will rage anew at his tormentor. Tonight, he falls asleep in his mother’s arms.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>